


my only wish is to be with you

by makeshiftrolley



Series: The Dance of the Two Left Feet [2]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Non-Pathfinder Ryder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 19:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11111754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeshiftrolley/pseuds/makeshiftrolley
Summary: After Meridian, Reyes Vidal takes care of Jean Ryder. They make promises on a cliff overlooking Port Meridian.





	my only wish is to be with you

**Author's Note:**

> The only canon divergence in this fic is the Ryder paired with Reyes is the non-Pathfinder twin who wakes up earlier than in the game (pre-Kadara). The Pathfinder is his twin sister.
> 
> Other notes:
> 
> lolo - grandfather in Tagalog; used as an honorific for elders
> 
> iho - son or child; short for unico hijo which means 'only son' in Tagalog (It has a slightly different meaning in Spanish, I believe). Used as a term of endearment by elders
> 
> Malolos - is a city in the Philippines (not Manila) and the Seirra Madre mountains mentioned in this fic run through the province the city is in.

“Can we go for a walk? Same place?” Jean asks Reyes every afternoon since the doctor permitted him to leave the confines of his room. Usually, Reyes calls Gabriela and she rushes to her brother’s room, Pathfinder duties be damned. It’s her quarters technically but Gabriela hasn’t stayed in the room for longer than an hour. Some nights, she comes back, exhausted and tosses herself on the couch.

But Jean stops him as he punches the command to call his sister. “Just the two of us, please.”

They walk in silence, or Reyes walks and Jean pushes a button on his wheelchair to move him along. Jean doesn’t talk much after Meridian Control but when they have these afternoon stroll, he talks, a lot. He jokes about how his days have been reduced to lying in bed, taking pills, having checkups with the doctor and sleeping in their father’s quarters. Nothing about Meridian Control, never about Meridian Control.

And it dawns upon him, Jean talks to Gabriela but not him. 

They reach the top of a cliff overlooking Port Meridian. The sun has began to set so the Port is highlighted with streaks of pink, orange and yellow. Jean’s favourite spot as he recalls from the twins’ conversations each time they take this stroll. 

A moment later, Jean begins to speak. He doesn’t look at Reyes as the words spill from his mouth.

“Whenever we visited Malolos, my  _ lolo _ takes me to this place where you could see the sun set perfectly behind the Sierra Madre mountains. Except it wasn’t a cliff, it was by a rice field. One day, he takes my hand-”

He reaches for Reyes’ hand, only to grab his small finger. Reyes turns his hand around to interlock with Jean’s. He squeezes it tight. Jean still doesn’t look at him.

“-and says to me, ‘ _ Iho _ , one day, you will meet the girl of your dreams and when that happens I want you to give her this.’” 

With his free hand, Jean fishes a silver ring inlaid with rubies from his pocket. 

“My mother’s engagement ring, and before her, my grandmother’s,” Jean says, the ring lies flat on his palm. The silver band glints beautifully in the sunset.

“I told him that day, there will never be a girl because I’m gay,” he laughs. It has been awhile since he’s heard him laugh, and Reyes hates how much he misses it. 

“Lolo Juan told me to have it still, for when I find the  _ boy _ of my dreams.”

“Reyes,” Jean looks at him now, dark brown eyes full of promise. Reyes sees something else in them, something neither of them want to admit. “I want you to have it. The ring, I mean.”

“Are we-are you thinking of-” he sputters, his words getting caught at the tip of his tongue. 

“No,  _ no _ ,” Jean laughs again. “Gabby will kill me if I don’t do it properly.”

Slipping his hand out of Reyes’, Jean presses a button on his wheelchair to face him. He holds Reyes’ hand again and pulls him closer, until Reyes kneels in front of him. Their fingers are intertwined on Jean’s thigh. In a different time, they have done this before. In a different place, at their sanctuary in Kadara Port where Jean whines filthy noises as Reyes pleasures him with his mouth.

A different time. Maybe, a different universe now.

“I almost died there, Meridian Control,” he didn’t notice Jean is talking again. It’s the most he has spoken to him since Meridian Control and Reyes cannot form words on his lips. Words, his primary weapon and at this moment, when he needs them the most, they fail him.

“I’m not ready for that yet and neither are you with Kadara and the Collective at your back,” Jean removes his glove, finger by finger until Reyes’ bare hand lies flat on his palm. With their hands over each other like this, Reyes notices how similar their skin colours are. Another one of their similarities, maybe they aren’t so different after all. 

“I want you to have it, a promise-,” Jean slips the ring on his ring finger. The band gets caught on his joint, too large for a ring crafted for daintier fingers. They both smile, then Jean takes the ring off and fits it on Reyes small finger. 

“-That I will always come back, that  _ we _ will always come back to each other.”

Jean laces their fingers together again. His hand is warmer than it has ever been, more than when they weave their hands together, sharing heated kisses as they chase after their completion. 

“And you always tease me about my iron ring,” Jean points out where his engineering band fits right beside his promise ring. “Now we match.”

Reyes presses his lips on Jean’s right then, soft and chaste. He hums into the kiss as Jean cards his free hand through his hair and pulls him closer. Something fills up in Reyes’ chest, not love no. Both of them are too prideful to admit it.  

But it’s close enough.

 

They watch the sunset, hand in hand until Jean complains about a headache.

Or Jean doesn’t say a word about his head bursting open but Reyes sees blood dripping from his nose. He doesn’t say a word either as Reyes rushes him back to his quarters. 

He feeds him his pills and calls Dr. Carlyle despite Jean’s weak protests that he’s fine. He puts him to sleep despite Jean saying he can stay up a little longer. 

Reyes doesn’t notice that his heart is beating faster than it should.

Slumping on the chair beside the bed, Reyes checks his Omni tool. 10 missed calls and 50 unread messages since he last checked. He has it off these days. He doesn’t need an entire planet asking for him, not right now.

He taps the first name on the screen, Keema. It rings once before he hears her voice, she was waiting for him. 

“So you finally remembered that you have a Port to run,” she quips, “I know your  _ boy _ is confined to his quarters but that doesn’t mean you should be.”

Reyes rubs his temples. He’s too tired for this. 

“Keema just tell me why you called.”

“The Roekaar have returned to the Badlands. They attacked one of our settlements, and yours,” she says, he hears her inhale a long drag of smoke. She exhales, the smoke clouds her voice, “I’ve sent what angaran I can but Ditaeon is asking for more.”

“I’ll send Collective troops to the outpost, the Pathfinder can handle the rest.”

Keema reports more news about Kadara Port. How they have driven most of the Outcasts away, and Kaetus is still locked in his cell, blithering day and night about revenge when he gets out,  _ if _ he gets out. How the soup kitchen has done good to the people of the slums but they ask for more, and they complain how nothing has changed in Kadara.

The rest blurs away into senseless drivel. His mind drifts to the ring on his finger, now covered by his glove.

“Reyes, are you still there?” Keema asks, a slight indignation in her voice. She sounds exhausted, just as he.

“Yes, I’m still here,” he assures both Keema and himself. 

No, he’s not. Not really. 

“You seem distracted.”

“I only get distracted when you bombard me with so much information.”

“Is this about your boy again?” Keema asks rather enthusiastically. She must be grinning from ear to ear on other end.

He groans. He hears her giggle.   

“What did he do this time?” 

“He gave me a ring.”

“A ring?”

“Yes, Keema, a  _ ring _ ,” he sighs, rubbing his temples again, “On a cliff, overlooking Port Meridian. He gave it to me as we watched the sunset.”

Reyes knows not to tell her every small detail but she presses for more until he gives in. She was always the gossip. 

“ _ Oh? _ I didn’t know he could be such a romantic!” She gasps dramatically on the other end, Reyes rolls his eyes. “I have seen him around. He seems so-”

Robotic? Thinks with his head and not his heart?

“-not the type to propose in such a way. So when’s the date?”

“The  _ what? _ ” he blurts out, and covers his mouth when he realizes his mistake. He looks at Jean, and breathes a sigh of relief when he didn’t stir. 

“Your wedding day? I’ve read about human customs and cultures, I know what humans do when they exchange rings,” she laughs. “We could have the wedding in Kadara, outside the throne room! I’ll invite all of my contacts since you hardly have any friends. The Pathfinder would come, yes? He is her brother after all.”

“Keema,” he sighs and yet she blathers on.

“Angaran weddings are different from human ones since we have large families. Our weddings tend to last for days, and at the end, we give newlyweds gifts for their future families. Some give gifts that enhance their sexual activities. I’m sure you wouldn’t need any of that since you and your boy can’t seem to get your hands off each other.”

“ _ Keema, _ ” he feels heat rising to his cheeks, from annoyance and from her comment about their sex life.

She talks as if Reyes isn’t on the other end to listen to her talk nonsense. He can end the call right now but he worries once he goes back to Kadara, he’ll be welcomed by an entourage to a nonexistent wedding. 

“Keema, we  _ are  _ not getting married!” he yells as loud as he can without waking Jean. He glances at him still sleeping peacefully on the bed. Good.

Keema stops blathering.  _ Good _ .  

“Then, why did he give you the ring?” Keema asks.

His eyes dart to his gloved finger where the ring should be hidden underneath. Reyes flexes his hand, feeling the cool metal of the band on his skin. He shuts his eyes, replaying the memory in his lids.

“A promise,” his voice softens as he mimics Jean, “that he will come back to me, always.”

 

An hour after Keema ended the call, the door to the Pathfinder’s quarters opens, and the other Ryder twin enters the room. Reyes doesn’t look up from his Omni tool as Gabriela throws her jacket on the couch, missing it by an inch nor when she kicks her shoes off. She doesn’t mind him either. They’ve learned to maneuver around each other in the past weeks.  

However, instead of tossing herself on the couch like most nights, she pads around the room to the mini fridge under the desk. Gabriela walks to him, carrying two bottles of beer. 

“Drink?” she hands him a bottle, and pulls out a chair.  They drink in silence. Reyes doesn’t turn off his Omni tool.  

“How’s he?” Gabriela asks after a moment, tilting her head to her brother’s sleeping form. 

Reyes takes another sip. The alcohol leaves a bitter taste in his mouth that makes him want to gag. It’s not whiskey, but it’s enough to clear his head. 

“Good,” he lies...sort of. Jean doesn’t talk about the Archon in his sleep nor does he wake up screaming anymore. And she doesn’t need to know that Jean had another nosebleed today. 

He does every other day and she must be tired of hearing it just as Reyes is tired of seeing it. 

Gabriela narrows her eyes, the dark circles under her lids becoming defined, but decides not to press further. She takes another swig from the bottle, shifting her legs so one of her feet is tucked underneath her thigh. She taps the floor with her other foot. 

She’s agitated.

“Is everything alright?” Reyes asks. They haven’t talked about each other since before Meridian. All of their conversations since then have been about Jean. If Jean would ever wake up or if Jean would stop screaming in the middle of the night.

“Nothing’s ever alright,” Gabriela laughs darkly. She finishes the bottle of alcohol, walks to the mini fridge and returns with another bottle of beer. 

“Did you take him outside?” she asks.

“I did.” 

“Good,  _ good _ !” she raises the bottle up as if to say a toast before tipping it to her lips. She drowns the contents of the bottle with one swig.  

“You’re too good for him, Reyes. Too good, even better than me,” she mumbles, her speech is slurred from the alcohol. Reyes wants to believe that too. 

“Piece of shit sister I am, I can’t even fucking save him from this,” she digs her palms on her eyes and when she lifts them, her eyes are red-rimmed.

“I know, SAM!” Gabriela says to the AI as if Reyes isn’t sitting in front of her. “Doesn’t make it feel less shitty though.”

Reyes has seen her talk to the AI before, at the crime scene all those months ago. Not now, when she carries the galaxy’s weight on her shoulders while her brother is bedridden after his second coma. 

He pities her, really

“Gabriela, you should get some rest” Reyes suggests, shutting off his Omni tool. He walks her to the couch and picks up the leather jacket on the floor.

“Why don’t you? You look like a piece of shit, Reyes,” Gabriela says, “he’s not gonna die if you don’t watch him for one night.”

The ring feels constricted on his finger. 

“Take the couch,” she commands, taking the leather jacket from him and wrapping it around herself. Or tries to in her drunken state. 

Having no desire to argue with her, Reyes sits on the couch. He opens his Omni tool, instead of sleeping, and continues to work. What he  _ can  _ work on nowadays. 

Gabriela glares at him, “go to sleep, Reyes.”

“And if I don’t?” he challenges her, a smirk playing at his lips. 

“I’ll tell Jean in the morning,” she sits at the foot of the bed. Leaning against the bed, she yawns, “that his boyfriend should follow the Pathfinder’s orders for once.”

Her head lolls to one side and soon, she sleeps. 

Later, he calls Vetra to pick Gabriela up and return her to the Tempest. Let her sleep on a proper bed for once.

Reyes goes back to the chair beside the bed. He laces his fingers with Jean’s, and brings their joined hands to his lips, right where their rings meet.

Later, Reyes doesn’t realize he has fallen asleep until morning rays shine on his face. His fingers are still twined with Jean’s.

 

Mornings are the hardest to wake to because Jean has to convince himself that he’s here. The stark white of the ceiling blinds him a little but at least he’s not looking at-

_ The Archon’s eyes are cold. They bore into him, dissecting him piece by piece. His head feels like exploding, and yet he calls. Calls until he feels something snap in his neck and he screams. Something sticky runs from his nose, blood? He tastes cooper on his lips. It doesn’t stop, doesn’t stop, doesn’t _ -

He blinks once, twice. He’s  _ here _ . _ He’s here. He’s here. _

Reyes is sitting on the chair next to the bed while he uses Jean’s arm as a makeshift pillow. A few strands of his black hair brush Jean’s skin, it tickles. His fingers ground him. They are warm against his own even Reyes’ gloves prevent Jean from feeling his skin. He squeezes them. _He’s here._ _He’s here_. _He’s here_.

“Shit. What time is it?” Reyes wakes up with a groan, rubbing his weary eyes. 

“Good morning to you, too,” Jean leans to press a quick kiss on his mouth. Reyes slides a finger under his chin, tipping him closer. He smiles into the kiss. It feels...nice. 

When they break, Jean presses his forehead against Reyes. He savours the exchange of their uneven breathes, and how Reyes looks at him through hooded eyes. He etches it into the recess of his mind. If the Archon can have that, let him have  _ this _ for once.

“Have you taken your meds?” Reyes asks when their breathing steadies. 

“Such a romantic,” he teases. “No, I haven’t. Can’t exactly use my biotics to move the glass to me anymore. Remember?”

Reyes curses and fetches him a glass of water. When he returns, Jean has the pill in this mouth. As he swallows the pill, he watches him forlornly. Reyes  sits at the edge of the bed, his fingers tracing patterns on the sheets. Jean leans back on the pillow, watching him draw circles and stars . It comforts him.

They stay like this for a moment.

“Thank you,” Jean says, his voice barely above a whisper. 

The fingers on the bed halt and Reyes looks at him. He tilts his head to one side.

“Why?”

“For asking me if I have taken my meds. For even remembering that I have to take my meds,” he breathes, attempting to soothe his mind. “For being beside me during my coma. For holding my hand every time I remember what happened because shit-”

Tears form at the corner of his eyes. He blinks them away.  _ Don’t cry _ .  _ Don’t cry. _

Reyes rubs soothing circles on his hand. It steadies him a little. He doesn't say word, only listens. Just like the afternoon when Jean gave him the ring.

 

“I can’t even remember what exactly happen in Meridian-” he chews on the dry skin on his lips. Reyes is still tracing soothing patterns on his hand. He exhales,  “- _ Control." _  He feels a sense of relief, like a flood had burst open through the gates of his heart. 

The circles on his fingers stop. Reyes forms his lips into a thin line and pulls Jean close. Jean nestles himself into the crook of Reyes’ neck, inhaling his scent

And like everything about Reyes, it anchors him. 

“I don’t want to lose you,” he says into his ear. Reyes has never sounded so desperate before. 

“You won’t. I promised I’ll come back.to you remember?” He assures him, rubbing the same soothing patterns on his back. 

_ You won’t.  _ This time Jean promises it to himself,  _ you won’t.  _

 

The fingers clutching his shirt tighten. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a drabble but I couldn't stop myself so it turned into a this. It's not as organized as I wanted to because of that.
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](https://thevetranyxs.tumblr.com)


End file.
